MPS and Community Service

MPS and Community Service

When you see the MPS Organizational Philosophy, you’ll find the first sentence reads:

The founding board envisioned a guild that would provide members with opportunities for friendship, fellowship, education and sharing in an atmosphere of cooperation and teamwork.

Community Service was not mentioned there because the founding mothers did not want it to be the main focus of the guild.

But as I’ve been getting to know our MPS members, I’m finding that many, many of them are involved in some area of service. Lots of charity quilts are being produced from within our ranks! Some are “Quilts of Valor” for our state and national veterans, others are infant quilts that make their way to area hospitals, and still others are made for children or families in crisis. In addition to this, we have members who work with incarcerated women or recovering addicts to help them learn how to quilt or sew baby blankets. There are more still that knit and crochet for others. I’m sure that I am not aware of many other areas in which our members serve.

And that’s the point of this post. We have a Community Service page on this website, but we only have one item listed on it. That’s because we only have information on the “Quilts of Valor” program. We’d love to post more opportunities for service on that page. Not because we want to focus more on community service as a guild, but because sometimes a person will want to do something for someone else but doesn’t have the slightest idea where to go or how to start.

That’s where you come in. If you are already sewing quilts, teaching others to sew, or volunteering your services in the areas of fabric, yarns, or other fibers, would you mind letting us know what it is? You can email us the information to metropatch@metropatch.com or you can leave a comment below. It would be helpful to know the name of a contact person in addition to the organization. Think of the page as a resource center for those that want to help.

A little further down inside our Organizational Philosophy, you’ll find that The Metropolitan Patchwork Society

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Providence Passage Quilt Project’s mission provides comfort for dying patients and a keepsake for loving families and friends. It meets third Saturday of the month (except summer/holidays) and will provide kits, batting and fabrics. Contact person is Chaplain Sabine Maresco at 503-21505029 or Sabine.Maresco@providence.org.

Providence NICU quilts cover the incubators softening the environment of the ICU. The quilt is given to the family if the baby goes home or if sadly the baby does not. No materials are provided. Hospital contact person is Carol Brandt at 503-574-7560. She accepts 42-45 inch, square, washed quilts.

‘Days for Girls’ empowers girls with more dignity and health through sustainable menstrual management. The organization has specific requirements and I would check the website http://www.daysforgirls.org. No materials are provided. This is not quilting but a small group of my quilting friends use our cotton scraps for the shields and pads.

Camp Erin Portland is an annual summer program for children age 6-17 who are grieving the death of someone close to them. Each camper is given a comfort quilt to take home after camp. I’ve separately emailed a flyer, with info for our Community Service page.